When your Dream Vendor Looks Amazing Online… But Something Feels Off

This thing happens when you start to plan your wedding.
You’re suddenly deep in a social scroll and Pinterest loop of incredibly inspiration an beautiful things.

You stumble across a vendor. Binge their content, love their work. Their testimonials are great - they sound exactly like the thing you want to achieve for your own day.
Tick, tick, tick.

But there's something worth remembering before you hand over the deposit:
You're not only booking the work you can see. You're booking the experience of working with the person behind it.
And those two things aren't always the same.

You might enquire. You’re so excited to hear if your date is available. You’ve done your research and you’re practically waiting to hand over a deposit and book them for your day.

But their reply might take ages. You might wonder if your email got lost or what the go is. But you still hold hope and your reach out again.
They then reply and their email sounds generic, their excitement levels don’t exactly mirror yours. But you go through their process anyway and book a call.
You’ve been waiting all week and call day finally arrives. 4 minutes pass and you think maybe they’re just running a little late, so you wait. 10 minutes pass, so you send them a quick DM letting them know you’re here. Nothing. You exit the call and rejoin just to make sure it’s not a bad connection on your end. Still nothing. 20 minutes have now passed and you end the call.

Hours later they DM you. Something happened with their kids and they’re apologetic and thank you for understanding. They ask if you’d still like a quote.
So you feel bad, they’ve just had a rough times with their kids and you’re an understanding person so you reply letting them know it’s ok and yes you’re still interested but you’d also still like a call with them to meet them.

They reply and say they can do your quote but they’re about to leave on holidays so it won’t be for another 2 weeks and then attach a link to their calendar to book another Zoom.

The whole process feels like you’re the one leading, asking the questions, eager to meet. When in fact, it should be the other way around.
The vendor or business should be the one showing up, communicating (even if they’ve had a rough time with kids), they should always let you know where things are at.
You shouldn’t feel like a job to them.

Your intuition is telling you these are red flags. But your heart really really loves their work. And your head is saying ‘yes these might be red flags but…’ and can start to make excuses for them.
I know it might suck parting way with the vendor of your dreams. But please pay attention to that intuition of yours. I promise, it’ll never lie to you.

This week I had a very similar experience with a luxury wedding marketing agency.
She’s a copy writer, so naturally I’ve been hanging off every word on her instagram resonating so deeply and thinking - this lady gets it, I want to book her.
And I went through the same high hopes, excited for my call but she was a no show.
I gave another chance and low and behold, it resulted exactly like my story above.
As I sit writing this, there is still a big part of me that wants to give her another chance. I absolutely love her work. But I know these little red flags are the universe giving me signs.
I took a step back and did some digging.
I googled her and there were no pubic third-party testimonials. No Google reviews. Just testimonials on her own website and Instagram that she had control of the narrative -Red Flag.
Then I re-read the amazing reviews she did have on her instagram. And I noticed they were the same 5 business, sprinkled throughout her content. Those business would comment and sing her praises (validating to me that they’re legit) but then I noticed none of her other clients had commented on their wonderful experience either. - Red Flag.

So I woke up this morning feeling a bit shattered. I really thought she would be the one to help me but I know what is inevitable if I ignore these signs.
I end up spending a large amount of money but end up doing a large amount of chasing, admin and stressing to get the result I thought I was paying for.

I share this because I’ve seen it play out in vendors who have large followings, great reviews and incredible work but they’ve ghosted clients while active on socials. They disappear as soon as you’ve paid your deposit. When you need their answers on timings they’re no where to be found until the week of your wedding.
And what you’re really paying for isn’t just a makeup artist to make you feel beautiful and confident on the day, or a florist who’s work is stunning and can bring your garden wedding dreams to life. You’re also paying them to help you navigate that part of wedding planning because this is something you’ve never done before. You’re paying to lean on their expertise, their reassurance, their guidance, their calm.
If those things don’t feel like they’re being ticked, and they’re important to you. Please don’t ignore that.
I promise your plan B almost always ends up being the best decision you make. And after 15 years Planning weddings I have seen that to be true over and over.

If you’re needing support navigating this and vetting vendors, my door is always open.
And if you’re considering me as your Planner/ Stylist I welcome anyone to DM my past couples and have a chat with them about their experience with me. I genuinely work with the best couples and their families.

Lauren x